Buffalo Creek Hollow-February 26, 1972: Heavy rains caused The Pittston Coal Company’s coal slurry impoundment dam in Logan County, West Virginia to collapse, releasing 132 million gallons of wastewater through the hollow. The flood killed 125, injured 1,100 and over 4,000 were left homeless. Costs to clean were $3.7 million, survivors and family members of victims received a settlement of 13.5 million, or $13,000 per person. (Source: West Virginia Division of Culture and History)

Love Canal: In 1953 the Hooker Chemical Company covered a canal filled with hazardous waste and sold it to the city of Niagara Falls, NY. Twenty years later, a rash of birth defects, cancers, deaths and other problems, like toxic leakage, alerted citizens to the problems with the site. Company has paid more than $233 million to cover cleanup costs and victims’ medical expenses. (Source: EPA)

Bhopal gas leak: On Dec. 3, 1984, methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a tank at the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide plant in Bhopal. More than 500,000 people were exposed, with estimates of more than 3,800 who died immediately and thousands more who died of related deaths and suffered gas-related illnesses. Union Carbide paid $470 million to the Indian government as a settlement, however full clean up has not happened, the abandoned plant’s waste materials are polluting the groundwater. (Source: CorpWatch)Newscom/File

Three Mile Island: The reactor at TMI building 2 suffered a partial core meltdown on March 28, 1979. The plant in Dauphin County, Pa., owned by General Public Utilities and the Metropolitan Edison Co. (now monitored by Exelon Corp.), was deactivated immediately and clean up costs were estimated around $975 million. (Source: EPA)THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES/HO/AFP/Newscom/File

Minamata mercury disaster: The Chisso Corporation, a chemical company that dominated the factory town of Minamata, Japan, dumped an estimated 27 tons of mercury compounds into the bay surrounding the town between 1925-1968. Thousands of people and animals developed mercury poisoning, which the townspeople referred to as “the dancing disease” before they knew what was causing it. It killed 101 people directly and contributed to another 800 deaths, but the full extent has never been determined. Chisso was ordered to pay $240 million yen in compensation to families and a wide net was placed to stop contaminated fish from escaping the bay.Newscom/File

Chernobyl: On April 26, 1986, reactor number 4 at the plant lost coolant, causing a fire that spread radioactive fallout into the atmosphere. More than 300,000 people had to be resettled and countless others were physically affected by the radiation, either with death or related diseases. Costs for ongoing cleanup vary. Belarus estimated $265 billion and spent more than $13 billion between 1991 and 2003 on related costs, while the Ukraine has spent about $15 billion in the past 20 years to deal with the disaster’s fallout. (Source: EPA, Environment News Service)ZUFAROV/AFP/Newscom/File

Cuyahoga River ignition: This polluted Ohio River was so full of runoff industrial waste, sewage and oil that it caught fire several times between 1936-1969. (Source: EPA) The government’s Clean Water Act, which followed widespread public concern about the fires, created a mandate that the state clean up the river. Getting rid of the sediment load alone is estimated to be $6.7 million. (http://www.cuyahogariverrap.org/AHRBROCHURES/SedimentBrochure.pdf)Newscom/File

Tar Ponds in Nova Scotia: Called the “most-polluted” site in North America, the site on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia is full of polluted runoff from coke ovens associated with a local steel mill starting in the early 1900s through 1988, when the ovens were finally decommissioned. A cleanup plan jointly funded by the Canadian government and Nova Scotia of $400 million Canadian was announced in January 2007, but cleanup of the waterway has been slow. (Source: Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, Nova Scotia Province)